


paint your name in the heavens

by someawkwardprose



Series: fragments (snippets from the blue) [8]
Category: Torchwood
Genre: Fluff and Angst, Future Fic, Kid Fic, M/M, Post-Episode: s02e13 Exit Wounds, ish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-30
Updated: 2020-12-30
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:20:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28434525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/someawkwardprose/pseuds/someawkwardprose
Summary: The Rift shows Ianto a glimpse of Jack's future, when Torchwood (and Ianto himself) are long gone.
Relationships: Jack Harkness & Original Character(s), Jack Harkness/Ianto Jones
Series: fragments (snippets from the blue) [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2080962
Comments: 10
Kudos: 31





	paint your name in the heavens

**Author's Note:**

> just transferring my tumblr snippets to ao3, this was originally posted [here](https://someawkwardprose.tumblr.com/post/635255365793185792/janto-kidfic-ish-post-exit-wounds-ianto-gets)

“Tell me a Torchwood story, Daddy.”

Ianto leans on the door frame, watching. It’s a side to Jack he’s never seen before - or at least, not quite like this. He’s seen Jack caring, of course he has. Jack cares more than anyone Ianto has ever met, about the planet, the team, himself. But this Jack is softer, all the harshness and sharp edges worn down; or perhaps just tucked away, safe, so Rosie can’t get hurt.

“Don’t you know them all off by heart, yet?” Jack asks teasingly, booping her on the nose.

“Tell me about Auntie Gwen and Auntie Tosh saving the Draxillian,” Rosie says. “I like that one.”

He smiles at the memory. He, Jack, and Owen had been trapped in the Hub after the Draxillian’s breath had triggered a lockdown. Tosh and Gwen had dealt with language barriers, cultural missteps, and the Draxillian’s natural toxicity, all by themselves. They’d gotten her on her ship in the end, and they’d been all the closer for it. Owen had still been making fun of their ‘girls night’ just before… everything happened.

“It is a good one,” Jack says, and tucks her blankets up a little higher. “But I think I might just have one you haven’t heard. See, one time, your Uncle Owen had decided the entire team needed a physical - a health checkup, like you get at the Clinic when we land - and he decided to do your Uncle Ianto first. But your Uncle Ianto…”

It hit him, deep in his chest. One thousand years later, and Jack still remembered them - all of them. He kept their memory alive by telling his daughter their stories, hell, Rosie called them her aunts and uncles, this team of Jack’s that had died centuries before she was born.

_There is a kind of immortality in being loved by a man who will live forever_ , he’d said once. He hadn’t realised how right he would be, back then.

Maybe Jack didn’t love him like that anymore. But he loved him enough to remember him, and for a second, Ianto knew that was enough.


End file.
